Nope. I'm not granting them the shield of good intentions anymore. Greens don't care whom they hurt in the pursuit of their idea of religious perfection any more than Islamic fascists do. Case in point:

Tonight, PBS will air "Gold Futures," a film by Hungary's Tibor Kocsis. The film focuses on residents in Romania's Rosia Montana, a rural Transylvanian town, who are divided over the benefits of a proposed gold mine. It also features Gabriel Resources, the Canadian mining company trying to convince them to relocate so it can dig for a huge gold deposit estimated at 14.6 million ounces, worth almost $10 billion. PBS describes the film as a "David-and-Goliath story."

While the film gives time to supporters and opponents of the mine, it leaves unsaid that half of the villagers voicing opposition have now either sold their homes or will not have to move, because they live in a protected area where the village's historic structures and churches will be preserved. Viewers who see pristine shots of the Rosia valley won't realize the hills hide a huge, abandoned communist-era mine, leaking toxic heavy metals into local streams--or that while the modern mining project will level four hills to create an open pit, it will also clean up the old mess at no cost to the Romanian treasury. ...

Mr. McAleer, a former Financial Times journalist who has followed the mine battle for seven years, says he "found that everything the environmentalists were saying about the project was misleading, exaggerated or quite simply false." He produced his film on a shoestring $230,000 budget largely provided by Gabriel Resources, but says he was given complete editorial control.

The Gabriel funding caused environmental groups to label the film "propaganda" and demand the National Geographic Society cancel plans to rent its Washington, D.C., theater to the free-market Moving Picture Institute for a screening. The Institute notes opponents rarely challenge the film's facts. As for Mr. Kocsis's documentary, his Flora Film corporate Web site lists as its partners Greenpeace, the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and the George Soros-backed Energy Club of Hungary, all of which oppose the Romanian project on either environmental or nationalistic grounds (Transylvania used to be part of Hungary). ...

"Local opposition to the mine is strong and organized" says a statement signed by 80 environmental groups in January.

In his letter, Mr. Soros cites a recent poll organized by some members of Romania's parliament that "found 90% of respondents rejecting the project." But the poll turns out to be an unscientific Internet survey, and one of the environmental groups Mr. Soros funds urged people outside Romania to participate in it. What is clear: Two-thirds of Rosia Montana's people have accepted Gabriel's voluntary offer to buy their homes at above market rates....

Mr. McAleer tells me such encounters should wake up people "who, like myself, unquestionably believed environmentalists were a force for good in the world."... (emphasis added)

If the gold mine goes ahead, then the toxic mess from the old communist mine will be cleaned up. If not, then it won't be. Yet those labeled Greens oppose the mine. Why do you think that is?

The other day I was surprised to learn that Russia is as small as Mexico, GDP-wise. The bad news is that Mexico is as big as Russia. If you lived next door to Russia and you read about large numbers of Russian soldiers deserting to join violent drug cartels, would you be worried?

A reluctance by soldiers to act as police may have played a role, some experts said. Of the 4,890 soldiers assigned to the federal police force to help combat traffickers during the 2000-06 administration of former President Vicente Fox, all but 10 deserted, said Gomez, citing Defense Secretariat figures.

"Many are scared," said retired Gen. Luis Garfias Magaña, noting that hundreds of soldiers have been killed in clashes with the cartels over the past decade. "Before, a few died combating guerrilla groups," he said. "Now, they're fighting a veritable war against the traffickers."

The danger has escalated under the seven-month administration of President Felipe Calderon, who has sent more than 25,000 troops and federal police to areas under siege by the traffickers. In the process, experts say, he has also made the soldiers vulnerable to the cartels' corrupting influence.

"It's part of the larger issue which the military has always feared," said Roderic Ai Camp, an expert on Mexico's armed forces at Claremont McKenna College in California.

"It exposes all those people who come in contact with the anti-trafficking mission to corruption."

The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP. What follows, is this slightly misleading map – misleading, because the economies both of the US states and of the countries they are compared with are not weighted for their respective populations.

Pakistan, for example, has a GDP that’s slightly higher than Israel’s – but Pakistan has a population of about 170 million, while Israel is only 7 million people strong. The US states those economies are compared with (Arkansas and Oregon, respectively) are much closer to each other in population: 2,7 million and 3,4 million.

And yet, wile a per capita GDP might give a good indication of the average wealth of citizens, a ranking of the economies on this map does serve two interesting purposes: it shows the size of US states’ economies relative to each other (California is the biggest, Wyoming the smallest), and it links those sizes with foreign economies (which are therefore also ranked: Mexico’s and Russia’s economies are about equal size, Ireland’s is twice as big as New Zealand’s). Here’s a run-down of the 50 states, plus DC:

Lots of fun facts there for the geographically minded. Such as: Mexico's GDP is about the same as Russia's? I had no idea. France is as big, GDP-wise, as California? I'd thought California much bigger than that. Florida = South Korea? I guess we do get a little work done down here in the Sunshine State.

"In the 1990s, the EU was a giant organisation governed by prominent leaders," said leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "Today it has become a fat midget that lacks perspective and is governed by small-thinkers."...

Turkey was recalibrating its external ties and the EU was but one part of the equation, Dr Keyman said. "Membership should not be seen just as a gift to Turkey. There are benefits for Europe, too."

Semih Idiz, a foreign affairs columnist, goes further: "The EU is off the radar. It has confirmed Turkey's worst expectations. At present, it's an irrelevancy."...

The idea of Turkey hooking up with the European Union is like one of those funny you-tube videos showing a deer getting it on with a hunting dog. Or something. Like a hamburger for breakfast, some things just don't go together.

No one should argue that we went to war to improve the Mesopotamian environment. We didn't. We did go, in part, to liberate the Iraqi people, so while we were there we helped put the water back into the marshes of southern Iraq. Turns out that little side job is paying fast and big dividends (from John at Random Jottings, a fellow carpenter):

...The restoration of southern Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes is now a giant ecosystem-level experiment. Uncontrolled release of water in many areas is resulting in the return of native plants and animals, including rare and endangered species of birds, mammals, and plants. The rate of restoration is remarkable, considering that reflooding occurred only about two years ago. Although recovery is not so pronounced in some areas because of elevated salinity and toxicity, many locations seem to be functioning at levels close to those of the natural Al-Hawizeh marsh, and even at historic levels in some areas.... You know, since I've told you already, that the Iraq Campaign does not really have a military purpose. We just did it to test leftists. To test whether "liberals are really liberal. Test 'em to destruction; show them up for the evil horrid frauds they are.

I [John] wrote here:

...Iraq was (and is) the big test. To propose regime-change in Iraq is really to say to the Left: , "OK wise guys, you claim to be anti-fascist. Help us remove the worst fascist tyrant of our times. You claim to be humanitarian; here's one of the most brutalized countries of the earth needing our help. You claim you are not anti-Semitic; stand with us against against a monster who was paying bounties to Jew-killers. You claim to care about a certain group that's been denied a homeland; here in the Kurds we have a far bigger group denied a homeland..." (I could go on for a long while with these. You get the picture.)... Now I see there is another test. A test for the fake-environmentalists commonly known as "Greens." The deliberate destruction of the Iraqi Marshes was the biggest environmental crime of our time. Any real environmentalist would be thrilled by the possibility of bringing back to life this vast wetland, and succoring the simple people who lived in harmony with it for at least 5,000 years....

Real environmentalists would be eager to help out. So where are they?

I think that environmentalist is to Green as progressive is to Liberal, i.e., not much difference to any one outside the group looking in. Restoring the marsh, once twice the size of the Everglades, is nice. I'm glad we're able to un-do their deliberate destruction by Saddam Hussein. It's one more way in which Iraq will be a better place after we've left.

Fukuyama said that Islamist movements won’t make history in the way that the 20th century ideological struggles such as those between democracy and fascism or communism did because the appeal of fundamentalist Islam does not extend beyond the range of its heartland. He goes on to say that whether you call it globalization, modernization or westernization, what we’ve got presents a much greater threat to the Arab Middle East than what they’ve got does to us. Modernization inevitably empowers women, with the probem being - for traditional societies - that nothing is as culturally wrenching as the re-definition of gender roles. Which is true I suppose in the calculus of cultural existentialism, but less true - from my perspective anyway - in the math of “are we more likely to find that a dirty bomb has been planted in New York, or Teheran and thousands of people have been killed in an afternoon” kind of a way. (Fukuyama summarized by Neptunus Lex by Thomas Barnett in plain, NL's comments italicized - ed.)

Barnett has the job of deep thinking forward looking. Neptunus Lex is a thoughtful spear carrier. We're lucky to have both. It's interesting stuff, and fun to play with. No word on the threat posed by the greens, though. I think that's a big mistake.

If an Iraqi police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein exists, there is no convincing evidence of it - and that means the Associated Press has a journalistic scandal on its hands that will fester until the AP deals with it properly.

In statements, the AP insists Captain Hussein is real, insists he has been known to the AP and others for years, and insists the immolation episode occurred based on multiple eyewitnesses...

It is striking that no one has been able to find a family member, friend, or colleague of Captain Hussein. Nor has the AP told us who in the AP's ranks has actually spoken with Captain Hussein. Nor has the AP quoted Captain Hussein once since the story of the disputed episode...

To make matters worse, Captain Jamil Hussein was a key named source in more than 60 AP stories on at least 25 supposed violent incidents over eight months.

Paul refers to "the big lie"--the U.S. State Department's deliberate cover-up of the fact that Yaser Arafat personally ordered the murder of State's own overseas personnel, including an ambassador. This is indeed a very big lie....

Yet the State Department soldiers blindly on, committed to what must be the biggest lie in American foreign policy--the near-mystical belief that the Palestinian "peace process" holds the key to progress in the Middle East. So committed is State to this myth that it preferred to cover up the murder of its own personnel rather than confront the hollowness of its own policy.

It's tempting to play the "which is worse?" game. On the one hand, good Libertarians expect the government to be arrogant, screwed up, self serving, and incompetent. But an agency covering up the murder of its own ambassador to maintain its orthodoxy? Whoa! On the other hand, the old media has been lefty for, what, forty years now? And, sure, they've lost the bubble when it comes to Bush vs. Jihadis. But when did they become so cowardly that they fall for obvious terrorist stringer lies and refuse to come clean about it when confronted?

Really, these two institutions have committed and are committing the same sin: they will not betray their orthodoxy no matter what.

Life would be a lot better, and there would be a lot more people still alive today, if the AP and State could find it in their hearts to throw their shoulder to the damn wheel.

Seen at low tide

HummingbirdFinally, my first hummingbirds. Saw them on a fire bush in Crystal Beach, FL. My rental's neighbor's yard is all xeriscaped, which is ugly to me but just fine with the little hummers. At first, I thought they were the biggest hornets I'd ever seen.

Flamingo!One of these dudes flew right over my house. I couldn't believe it. And please don't tell me it was a roseated spoonbill because it was a frickin' flamingo, dude! Huge and pink and right there above me. I was like so freaking out, you know?

Black SkimmerThese beauties are getting scarce, but one flew by yesterday at low tide on the hunt for minnows.

Dead sea turtlecool, but smelly

Reddish EgretThese have been hanging out around the pool quite a bit lately. Must be a new group of adolesent birds -- the youngsters like to hunt where the water is clear, and it takes them a day to figure out there are not now and never will be fish in the swimming pool no matter how clear the water.

Sand Piper

Brown PelicanI saw a flock of about 200 of these at Disappearing Island yesterday, just south of Anclote Island on the west coast of FL. Good to see such a large flock.

Wood PeckerThey've developed a sudden interest in the orange tree, which just went into bloom.